Nintendo readying NFC-enabled Wii U games

NFC titles prioritised over those offering dual GamePad support

Nintendo design guru Shigeru Miyamoto has said the company is hard at work on near field communication-enabled Wii U games.

The technology, which allows physical objects to be read by NFC-ready devices such as the GamePad and projected into game worlds, is used in titles like Skylanders and Disney Infinity.

Miyamoto told Polygon that Nintendo is currently prioritising the development of NFC-enabled Wii U games over those that support dual GamePads, and that the company hopes to show off its work soon, even hinting at a possible reveal ahead of June’s E3 event.

"With NFC, that's a feature that everyone that owns a Wii U can take advantage of. So that's what we're putting our priorities right now,” he said. “We're hoping that in the near future we'll be able to show you something that will take advantage of the NFC on Wii U and people will be able to enjoy that.

"With regards to the two GamePads functionality, from a gaming system standpoint we are developing games that will have that capability. In the future, perhaps when we get closer to something that, an environment where everybody or a large majority of people would have two GamePads, that might be a time where we look at how we can leverage a system of that nature."

Asked if Nintendo will wait until E3 to reveal its NFC project, Miyamoto said: "It used to be that we would save many of our announcements for E3 and we would announce them at the show, but what we've seen in the recent years is that there are a number of different ways and a number of different times when we have more opportunity to make those announcements. I can't today make any promises of what we're going to do at E3, but I think, this in particular is going to be a year where we're seeing more regular announcements from Nintendo about what's coming and that someplace within the announcements that we're making, hopefully we'll have something to share about NFC.”